Nine Till Three and Summers Free

by Mike Kent

  ‘I’ve bought most of my geography set, too,’ said Gerry. ‘Didn’t fancy rushing around half the term trying to find them.’

  ‘Well lads, it looks like I’m down to borrowing your books for the time being. All I have is a paperback of ‘Shane’ and an Agatha Christie. I’m doing the combined science course. The ‘A’ level science papers must have got me in here. For some inexplicable reason I got quite good marks. I made a point of telling the Doc that I’d been in the Scouts for a long time and camped all over Europe. He seemed impressed and said it must have greatly broadened my experience of life.’

  Gerry stood up and crossed to the window, gazing out at the night sky and stroking his long chin.

  ‘I joined the Scouts for a while,’ he said. ‘The assistant Scoutmaster kept trying to put his hand up my trousers. Not only mine, either. I think he tried to put his hand up the trousers of the entire troop. It was certainly a quick way to earn a lot of badges.’ He placed his bone china cup carefully back on the tray. ‘Anyway, how did you two come to choose this college?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Duggan. ‘I chose the first three mixed colleges on the clearing house list. Just like every other bloke, I imagine, but all the places had gone. Then I just worked my way through the list until someone accepted me. Which happened to be here, but it couldn’t be better. Right in the heart of London.’ As he finished, he leant against the radiator and sprang off like a scalded cat.

  ‘My God, it’s full on! No wonder I’m sweating!’

  ‘They’re all on,’ I said. ‘Our small rooms are even hotter. And if you open the window you get covered in dust from the building site. Don’t leave any books on your desk.’

  ‘Good thing I haven’t got any to leave, then.’

  Gerry stood up, fiddled with the tap on the radiator, and shrugged his shoulders: ‘Corroded. The system was probably installed by the Romans. I’ll put a ring spanner on it tomorrow.’

  ‘After you’ve fixed my car,’ said Duggan. ‘You’re pretty handy then?’

  ‘Alternatives, if I find I can’t teach,’ Gerry smiled. ‘In any case, I shall probably need to moonlight, considering the current state of teachers’ salaries.’

  Duggan took some coins from his pocket and carefully counted them. ‘I’ve got a bit of money left. Let’s go to the pub, shall we? Probably our last chance before we succumb to the demands of educational philosophy.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Gerry. ‘The Barley Mow’s our nearest. I shouldn’t think it’ll be very busy on a Monday night.’

  He was wrong. The Barley Mow was not only the local for much of the neighbourhood, but every student in the college seemed to have descended on it after the buffet. Frantically waving a pound note in the air, Duggan was finally rewarded with three pints of warm lager and three packets of crisps. We managed to find a few inches of elbow room in a corner of the saloon bar.

  ‘May it be the first of hundreds,’ said Duggan, raising his glass and drinking a third of his pint with great enjoyment.

  ‘So we’re the first group to train for three years instead of two,’ said Gerry. ‘I can’t see how they’re going to fill the time.’

  ‘Well, let’s not complain,’ Duggan replied. ‘Think of the social side. Okay, so we’ve got some exams to pass, but we need to make full use of all the college facilities. The dances, the societies, the drunken pram races, the ladies from the neighbouring colleges. I reckon teaching should be the easy bit.’

  ‘But teaching has changed a lot over the last few years,’ I said. ‘I wonder if the lecturers keep up to date with everything that’s going on. Dr Bradley seemed to think they do.’

  ‘You mean this business of the teacher not standing in front of the class and teaching any more? Yes, it has changed. In the primary school it’s all topics, centres of interest, learning across the curriculum and so on.’

  Duggan’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘Learning across the curriculum? So what’s all that about?’

  ‘All the curriculum subjects are integrated together. It’s called a broad-based curriculum.’

  ‘Is it? Well I’ve learnt something already. At my primary school we chanted our tables and divided our sentences into subject and predicate.’

  ‘Table chanting is right out nowadays,’ said Gerry. ‘You’re supposed to start at a level the child can understand and provide him with lots of practical activity to reinforce his number awareness. And reading schemes, well, they’re definitely frowned upon’.

  ‘Frowned on by whom?’

  ‘The people who decide the latest fashions in education,’ I said. ‘The idea these days is that you surround children with books and they’ll learn to read.’

  ‘What, by osmosis?’

  ‘We don’t know that yet,’ said Gerry. ‘We’ve only read the theory.’

  ‘Well, I can appreciate the theory. I mean, surround me with beer and I get pissed.’

  Gerry nodded seriously. ‘Nice analogy. And using the same principle, if I surrounded you with books, you’d learn to read. I just don’t know how. No doubt the course will tell us.’

  ‘Well, you lads have certainly put everything into perspective,’ said Duggan. ‘If only Mrs Brice had used that technique at my school. Perhaps she wouldn’t have felt it necessary to keep digging me in the back with her finger. Anyway we’ll worry about it all later. The dart board’s free. Let’s have a game.’

  As we walked back to the college an hour later I looked forward to the new routines and pleasures of college life. I felt very lucky to be training in the heart of London and I intended to make full use of everything this great city had to offer. Three years, I felt, would pass all too quickly, and as I finished unpacking my case I anticipated the pleasure of teaching young, enthusiastic primary school children. The neon lighting on the buildings outside my window gleamed brightly across the night sky and there was a constant rumble of traffic from the main road. I sat down at my desk for a few minutes to write a brief letter home and then I climbed into bed, exhausted after the long day.

  (iii)

  It seemed I had only slept for minutes when I was awakened by a high-pitched whistling noise from the next room. I looked at my watch. I’d actually been asleep for more than two hours. Slipping on a dressing-gown, I crept into the corridor and knocked softly on the door.

  ‘Come in, you old bastard!’

  Startled, I turned the handle and put my head round the door, to be greeted by an apologetic voice.

  ‘Oh! I beg your pardon, old boy… I thought it was Eric.’

  Peering through sleep-blurred eyes, I felt I was surveying the last minutes of a jumble sale after hordes of aggressive bargain hunters had decided anything remotely worth having was already in their possession. Books lay everywhere, some half open, some in assorted piles, and several with notes scribbled in them. Many of them seemed to be about British birds. An additional socket had been pushed into the light fitting and three bulbs lit the room like a miniature film set. A purple vase on a stained coffee table in one corner contained a solitary, wilting plastic rose. Pieces of paper, covered with pictures of birds, mathematical equations and musical notation littered the floor. The ample bookshelf supported a glass fronted wooden box, containing a stuffed tawny owl and a piece of bread and butter, buttered side down.

  The wardrobe inclined dangerously to one side. It was stuffed with magazines, clothes and a mud-covered trench coat. Two suitcases perched perilously on top. A box of balsa wood was on the desk, with a set of miniature wood carving tools, screwdrivers and a banjo with some of its strings missing.

  Dudley Hornpipe sat heavily on the end of his bed, still wearing the long grey pullover he had worn at the introductory meeting, but no trousers. Instead, he wore a pair of football shorts, with a pipe thrust down each sock. Suddenly, he sprang up from the bed.

  ‘What am I thinking of? Do come
in, old boy.’ He cleared a path for me through the clutter. ‘Sit where you like. There’s a spare cushion on the floor somewhere.’

  I sat down obediently, like a patient in shock.

  ‘Of course,’ Dudley continued, poking various bits and pieces under the bed, ‘you can lie down if you wish. Little sense in standing when you can sit, is there? And even less in sitting if you can lie.’

  I nodded lamely. My eyes were still having difficulty adjusting to the light.

  ‘I’m running a test, you see,’ Dudley explained. ‘If there is sufficient power for three light bulbs, then there’s no reason why it shouldn’t run my stereo. When the Normans built this place they neglected to put in a couple of wall sockets. I don’t think we’ve met, have we? I’m Dudley. And you are?’

  ‘Mike.’

  ‘Excellent. Hello Mike. Is this a social visit or did you want to borrow something? If it’s milk, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.’

  ‘Actually, I’m here because I was trying to sleep and I heard a noise from your room…’

  ‘Really? You have my sympathy. I expect it’s the plumbing. I think there’s a packet of sleeping pills stuffed in here somewhere…’ He thrust a large hand into his desk drawer and rummaged around for a moment.

  ‘No thanks, that’s the last thing I need. Do you realise the time? It’s twenty past one.’

  Dudley’s eyebrows rose in astonishment. ‘Good Lord! Is it really?’

  ‘It is. And I’ve been trying to get some sleep, you see. I heard a noise…’

  ‘A noise? Oh yes, of course, of course. I do apologise.’ Dudley picked up a thin wooden pipe from the floor. ‘I’ve just finished carving finger holes in this and I was trying it out. I’ve made quite a few but I’m not sure the pitch on this one is quite right. I prefer the banjo, but it’s a second hand one and for some reason the damn strings keep breaking.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed that,’ I said.

  ‘What, at the meeting, you mean? Bloody embarrassing. Still, we were invited to bring musical instruments if we wanted to, so I blame the good Doctor.’

  He scratched his nose solemnly and gazed sadly at the instrument on the desk. ‘I’ll tell you something fascinating, though. I’m quite keen on nature study, birds mainly, and this pipe makes a sound incredibly similar to a red-backed shrike. Listen…’ He blew a shrill noise on the pipe.

  ‘So it does,’ I said, with just the faintest hint of impatience.

  ‘I told you! I suppose the real sound is more of a sharp ‘shack-shack’, but there you are.’ He made a curious honking sound in his throat, gagging with the effort. I wondered how many other people on the corridor had woken up and were wondering what was going on. Dudley didn’t seem to have considered this.

  ‘I fancy I’ll be involving the children in this sort of work,’ he said. ‘Birds are fascinating. I’ve got a real passion for them. We’ll build nesting boxes, analyse their songs, trace flight paths and so on. Do you know, it’s possible to cover a large amount of the curriculum on a topic like this. I think it all depends…’

  My eyes had closed and I began to slide off the chair. Dudley put his hand on my arm apologetically.

  ‘Oh look, I’m terribly sorry… I really shouldn’t be keeping you up. How about some coffee? There’s some instant stuff under here somewhere…’

  He searched under the desk, pulled out a battered biscuit tin and forced the lid open with a rusty spoon. ‘Mind you, I imagine you’d rather have a beer, but Eric took the last two bottles of my home-brewed with him half an hour ago and I haven’t seen him since. Probably shook it too much and blew himself through the bloody roof. I did warn him. Have you tried brewing it yourself?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, never tried it. I’ve tried sleeping, though, and I…’

  Dudley swept on, untroubled by the sarcasm. ‘You really should,’ he said. ‘It’s remarkably cheap. I brewed two gallons to bring up here. Couldn’t get any more in my car. Eric quaffed more than his fair share anyway, greedy sod.’

  ‘I couldn’t drink any more tonight anyway,’ I said. ‘I really just fancy a few hours sleep.’

  ‘Black coffee it is, then. Unless you can find someone with a pint of milk to spare. I’ve got a boiled egg if you want one.’

  I stood up hurriedly and groped for the door knob. ‘Another day, perhaps. I’ll look forward to it. Now, if you could just stop playing your penny whistle…’

  ‘Of course! Of course! Well, do come again.’

  He pumped my hand in a vice-like grip. ‘Drop in whenever you feel like it, especially if you need help with your maths.’ Picking up a piece of paper covered in numbers from the floor, he scanned it thoughtfully. ‘Excellent. I thought I’d lost that. I must admit the idea of teaching mathematics appeals to me.’ He sat down again and obviously expected me to do the same. ‘It’s a fascinating subject, like child psychology. Have you read this book?’

  I took the thin orange volume he held out. ‘No, I haven’t,’ I admitted, desperate for my bed and thinking I might have to tunnel out of the room to escape. ‘It’s not a set book, is it?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue, old boy. I haven’t bought any of the set books, anyway. This one is fascinating. It contains a lot of stuff on children’s sense of shape and perception. You know the sort of thing… if a child stares at the sky he’ll notice the moon rather than a cloud, even if the cloud is equally bright.’

  ‘I must admit I’ve never really considered it,’ I muttered. ‘Especially at this time of the morning, when sleep is what I need to be considering.’

  ‘Take it, with pleasure. Read a bit of it before you go back to sleep. You can let me know what you think of it in the morning.’

  Seizing the opportunity, I took the book, pointed out that morning had already arrived and hurried back to the sanctity of my room. As I drifted back to sleep, I wondered what children would make of Dudley. They’d probably find him fascinating. Or crucify him.

  OCTOBER

  THE PLUMBING, AND A FIRST TASTE OF FROSTBITE

  Not daring to be late on my first morning, I hurried out of bed at seven o’clock, woken by the persistent ringing of my own alarm clock and those in the rooms around me. Grabbing my plastic ablutions bag, I staggered out of my room and along to the washroom at the end of the corridor, to find Dudley already there amongst several other students who were shuffling around aimlessly in their pyjamas. Dudley looked as if he hadn’t been to bed at all, his condition reflected in the painful effort he was making to turn a tap on. The scene, I thought, resembled a committee meeting of zombies.

  I braced myself, and muttered ‘Good Morning’ to nobody in particular. Dudley turned and smiled weakly, squinted at his beard in the large cracked mirror, and then padded out in his carpet slippers and dressing gown. ‘I’ll see you in a while, old boy,’ he whispered. ‘I’m never at my best this side of lunchtime.’

  The washroom was desperately primitive, consisting of a stone-floored rectangular area with surface pipework that had so many joins I assumed the room must have been an apprentice site for plumbers. One tap had been twisted upside down. A row of ancient white sinks on each side of the room drained into a common trough, and the plasterwork was coming away from the wall, threatening to take the two end sinks with it.

  Adding to the misery of this chilly morning, the hot water system seemed to have failed, and the water was ice cold. Some students had resigned themselves to scraping the shadow from their faces with soap and cold water; others entered the room, held a hand under a tap for a moment, and then muttered darkly before wandering back to their bedrooms. Several sinks were stained and cracked, and water dripped onto the stone floor from a noisy tap in one corner of the room. The drips were forming an ominous puddle that threatened to seep into the corridor, and I remarked that Milly must have a job mopping it up every day. Somebody near me laughed coldly.

  ‘
She never cleans anything up, mate. People have caught bubonic plague from the dirt on this corridor.’

  ‘Frank doesn’t like her,’ explained a short, frail student wearing a pair of boxer shorts three sizes too large and a limp string vest. ‘She never forgave him for the time he threw up in her washbucket. He didn’t even tell her’.

  ‘I did tell her, Dennis. You know that.’

  ‘Not for two days you didn’t’.

  ‘Okay, I grant you that. But at least I did tell her. I just forgot, that’s all.’

  ‘She had a great time, scraping diced carrot off her mop, and…’

  ‘Well, that couldn’t have been me, then. I don’t even like diced carrot.’

  ‘No, nor did she. I…’

  The conversation was interrupted by the strains of ‘Tonight’ from West Side Story being sung in a Welsh dialect at an impossibly high pitch. The sound rang around the corridor and travelled towards the bathroom. ‘Jesus, it’s Dai,’ moaned a student at the sink in the corner.

  ‘Who’s he?’ I asked, finding an empty basin and filling it quickly.

  ‘Dai Early,’ said Frank.

  ‘He’s a second year,’ said Dennis. ‘Brilliant musician. Plays five instruments. Trouble is, the bugger sings all the time and if he sings any higher his testicles will be sucked inside his skinny frame. We don’t need it first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Which is why we call him Dai Early,’ said Frank. ‘And we keep our fingers crossed.’

  A large, round, freckled face appeared at the door, wearing wire framed spectacles with a missing lens. A grin stretching from ear to ear took up most of the lower part of the face.

  ‘Mornin’ boyo’s!’

  ‘Morning, you Welsh sod!’

  ‘Thank you for that friendly greetin’, lads. I’m very pleased to see you too. Now then, what shall it be this mornin’?’ Without waiting for a reply, he broke into the Soldiers’ Chorus from Faust.

  ‘Oh come on Dai,’ pleaded Frank. ‘Piss off, there’s a good lad.’